Tron 2.16 – Fragmentation

Ma3a led Jet through the back-channels and out-of-band paths that led from the city so as to avoid any further incidents with the ICPs.

In the square, the ICPs were tolerant as programs from other systems would enter through that hub but the further they went out, the more likely their activity would come under scrutiny.

Jet followed Ma3a as stealthily as he could, but after a while realized it didn’t make too much difference. As long as he didn’t openly discuss matters with Ma3a, the programs didn’t pay him that much attention and Ma3a seemed to know how to avoid the ICPs.

After they left the city, Ma3a continued out across an open plain that existed at the edge of the city area. They were walking in the direction of one of the smaller communications tower beams.

“What is this place” asked Jet. The landscape was relatively flat, but resembled more a fractal generation than anything logical and ordered.

“Unused memory locations. Buffer space for the log files,” Ma3a explained.

After some distance, the city barely visible, Ma3a crested a slight hill that seemed to rise for some distance in either direction and stopped at the top.

Beyond was a huge, deep pit with a knoll in the centre, upon which sat a solitary building that appeared to house a communications tower.

Ma3a walked a little further then stopped at the very edge of a sharp cliff and pointed down.

“At the base of the I/O tower there is an archive where the logs are stored. If you know how to read the logs, they should tell you where Mercury is.”

Jet looked around.

“As simple as that eh?” Jet asked.

“Not simple at all,” corrected Ma3a. “This is a high security area and you’ll still need to find a way into the tower.”

Jet looked out and realized that the tower was isolated.

Below the precipice was a drop that Jet would have estimated estimated, by measures alien to this world, was around three hundred meters straight down.

At the base of this pit lay a well-formed grid, riddled with grid bugs. The bugs themselves seemed to be chased by tank application and the place was swarming with recognizers, which appeared to be directing the tanks towards the grid bugs.

Sitting in the middle of this pit, like a castle with a colossal moat, was the archive Ma3a was referring to. The width of the pit that contained this all appeared to be at least a couple of kilometers across and nowhere could Jet see a path leading to the archive.

Located at the centre-top of the archive was a communications tower that came to Jet’s level, sitting atop a large cubic structure that appeared to have data cubes passing into and out of it as the communications tower pulsed in synchronicity.

The tower beam was a deep red, but occasionally blue pulses flowed through it.

“And do you have any suggestion as to how we should get down there?” Jet asked.

“You’re the user,” Ma3a pointed out.

Jet looked back at her.

“Are you sure I’m a user Ma3a,” he asked, “Because I don’t even think a user could find a way into that place”

“Users created this place,” said Ma3a.

“And Mercury took this place some time ago by herself,” She added.

“And now it’s my turn then,” Jet added.

Jet looked out over the digital fortress beyond him. Just on the far side, the space between the edge and the archive looked a touch blurry.

“Ma3a, do you have any digital amplification function?” asked Jet, straining to look at the other side of the pit.

“No I do not possess any such routine or functionality,” said Ma3a.

Jet pointed to the far side. “It almost looks like there’s something different on the far side,” said Jet.
“I can see what looks like a stream of particles.”

Ma3a looked as carefully as she could. “I can see something over there Jet, but I cannot determine what it is at this range.”

“We need to look closer,” said Jet.

Ma3a started walking without Jet. “Then we will have to move closer” She said.

It took some time to traverse the circumference of the huge pit. It was a long walk and Ma3a’s glide made it look effortless, but Jet had to walk each step of it.

Strangely, despite the brisk walk, Jet didn’t feel exhausted at all when he reached the area he had seen earlier.

Translucent cubes were slowly rising up and over the lip of the pit.

Leaning over the edge for a better look, a number of these cube primitives were floating up the side of the pit from a depth of around thirty meters before they flowed on past the edge and out towards unused memory where they seemed to sink slowly into the ground.

The cubes seemed to originate from a gash in the wall of the archive. They would slowly fall, some all the way to the grid, then rise back up and seemingly float all the way to the edge where Jet stood. The progress of the cubes was incredibly slow though, although their numbers would have been well into the thousands.

“What are these,” Jet asked.

“From external appearances, these are unprocessed memory locations reserved for logs, but which appear to have originated from a memory leak or buffer overflow.”

Jet wondered if these cubes might make a useable bridge to the archive.

“Could these cubes hold my weight,” asked Jet.

Ma3a seemed to consider the request then responded. “Present data suggests that given your application mass, most of these cubes can support you without descending.”

“Most,” Queried Jet.

“Approximately 4 percent of cubes have insufficient data buoyancy,” Ma3a responded.

Jet considered that. The numbers seemed reasonable, but something told Jet the risk was higher than it sounded.

“One in twenty five. What will happen if I step on one of those?” Jet asked.

Ma3a calculated. “They will descend towards the grid bugs and tank field, although the rate will vary.

“Approximately 90 percent will descent at less than one unit per microcycle – enough to move back, unless you cannot reach the prior cube.

“One percent will drop at a rate that would make it difficult to return to the previous cube.

“ The remaining nine percent will descend at a rate that may make return difficult if return does not occur quickly.

“All cubes that do descent will descend at different rates,” Ma3a said.

“And what would happen if I decend?” asked Jet.

Ma3a gave a wave of her arm across the pit. “Then the grid bugs, tank programs or recognizers in the base of the pit would identify and trap you and message the kernel.

“I do not imaging he would be happy to find a user loose in his system.”

Jet considered this. “These cubes seem to be about a meter apart on average, and are flowing from the centre tower. I guess that puts my odds at reaching it at around 2.5:1 Ma3a,” Jet said.

“I am not familiar with that unit of measurement, but that approximation evaluates as true,” Ma3a said.

Jet was still having trouble remembering why he was here, but if what Ma3a said was correct, then he needed to find Mercury. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t found mercury before, but he knew he needed to find her now. If what Ma3a had said was correct.

Jet shook his head briefly, as if hoping it would remove the fog in there.

“Ma3a, I’m going to climb over these cubes,” Jet said. “Can you follow?”

“That evaluates false Jet,” Ma3a said. “These cubes cannot hold my mass.”

Jet nodded. “Alright then, Can you wait here for me?” Jet said.

“I will wait here until otherwise interrupted,” said Ma3a. She then crossed her legs and folded her arms and assumed a waiting position. It seemed strange, reminding Jet of something, as Ma3a bobbed slightly as she floated. Her legs had more risen to her than her torso descended.

Jet cautiously stepped out to a nearby cube, just over the edge. He tested it carefully with one foot and although it moved, it remained reasonably stable. Looking back briefly at Ma3a who appeared to be in sleep mode now, Jet took a deep breath and jumped entirely to the cube.

The cube glowed a little under Jet’s feet and began to sink slowly, causing Jet to pause, but after dropping around a quarter of its width, stopped sinking and remained stable.

Pleased with his first attempt, Jet selected another cube lower down and jumped to it. Again, the response was similar.

The first twelve descents went well then the next cube Jet chose fell out from under him without warning. Although it wasn’t descending too quickly at first, Jet was slow at getting off and when he realized he needed to get off, there were no other cubes around him at that level.

Jet was descending towards the stream of cubes though and noticed that there was a cube just below him near the float level. Blinking once and holding his breath again, Jet jumped to the other cube as he was about to descend past it, crouching hard to take the drop.

The cube Jet had been standing on continued past for a moment, slowed, then started to return to it’s original position.

It rose for a moment then lost its bright appearance and plummeted to the grid below, bouncing once then rolling twice before stopping.

Jet held the sides of his new cube for a moment then stood up. Below, Jet watched a Grid Bug moving through the grid underneath. It surfaced near the cube, moved over to it and approaching cautiously started to inspect the new addition to its realm.

The Grid Bug resembled a four-legged spindly spider in many ways. It moved itself around the cube a couple of times, then in a move that surprised Jet suddenly jumped onto it, sinking two appendages into the cube which gave off a little burst of light and then started to derez.

Jet swallowed hard. That had nearly been him. He looked towards the tower and realized that now he had descended nearly 30 meters and getting back up would be difficult if he decided to turn back.

For a moment, he started to wish he had thought this through a little more before he came down here. it was nearly a kilometer to the central tower and there were still recognizers floating down around the bottom and Jet had no idea if they could spot him up here.

Jet wasn’t even sure he knew exactly what grid-bugs, tanks and recognizers were. Somewhere inside he felt he already knew the answer, but it just wasn’t making it through to his head at this time.

There were many more Grid Bugs to see. At times, one would pop out of the grid below and move around before going back under the surface. At one point Jet watched a Tank approach a Grid Bug and the Grid Bug attempted to escape back into the field, but the tank application was a little too quick and Jet watched a pieces of Grid Bug scatter across the grid on the floor of the pit.

The cubes here were relatively closely packed. Only a thousand or so to jump across and he would be at the central tower, where there seemed to be a lot more packed together and he assumed he could climb up.

Hopping from cube to cube was difficult. Occasionally one started to sink and Jet had to leap to the next in a hurry to get off.

At one point, he hopped from one sinking slowly to one that began to sink a little quicker and nearly didn’t make it to the next cube after that, but fortunately the third cube was stable and neither had dropped as quickly as the one that brought him down to this level.

The trip was arduous and slow but the recognizers ignored him and he was able to approach the cubes near the tower.

It was only when close to the tower that Jet realized his issue. There were a lot of cubes here, but they were all descending from the memory leak – not rising. It was only after they dipped quite some way to the base that they began to ascend again.

There were also a large number of cubes piled up at the base of the tower, scattered around with a few grid-bugs that dodged the tanks to munch at some that spilled all the way to the grid. Jet guessed some of the cubes must have been duds.

To some extent, this area resembled something a little bit like blue cubic water falling down a blue fractal face which formed the knoll on which the communication tower that held the log archives.

Because the cubes descending were too far to jump to, it looked to Jet like he was going to have to descend some more before he could climb back out on the cubes closer to the wall, all the way to the breach.

Reaching the edge of the rising flow, Jet carefully picked the cubes that were ascending at the greatest rate, assuming they would be unlikely to sink.

Jet had dropped about another thirty meters and was near the point that some cubes were changing direction when a recognizer, clearly now interested in him that he had dropped low enough to be noticed, came along and passed a scanning beam over Jet.

“Damn it,” he muttered and jumped to another block to get out of its way. Unfortunately, the other block was descending, was weak and dropped quickly when Jet landed on it, taking Jet down like an express elevator to grid-bug hell.

“Ma3a,” Jet called out, hoping Ma3a might be able to do something, but at this distance, he couldn’t even see her.

“Illegal Program executing escape routine,” came a broadcast voice that seemed to emanate from within Jet’s own mind. “Prepare to be scanned.”

Jet looked below. He was still a distance above the recognizer, but tanks on the grid below suddenly took note of him as well and left the grid-bugs alone. In another moment, Jet recognized the flash of their muzzles as significant. The tanks were firing at him.

“Out of the frying pan,” muttered Jet. He was descending close to the side of the knoll presently.

The first of the tank rounds smashed into the wall of the knoll above Jet. Concentric circles of energy appeared on the face of the knoll above Jet and large jagged pieces of whatever the knoll was made of were blown out.

Jet ducked instinctively as a large piece dropped past him, although if it has been coming straight at him there would be little he could do. There were no other cubes around him at the moment and this one was dropping towards the wall of the knoll as it fell.

Below, Jet watched as the huge chunk of knoll as it fell to the grid. A grid bug near the edge of the memory leak droppings looked up and attempted to move before the chunk fell but was too slow. Moments later, the chunk embedded itself into the grid below, with only the Grid-Bug’s legs around the outside if the counter-sunk rock to indicate that the Grid-Bug had ever existed.

The tank that had been firing at Jet took another shot, this one coming in low and blowing pieces up into the air around Jet, each arcing up and each looking big enough to knock his cube clean out of the sky.

Cubes all around Jet were all buffeted by the explosion and flowed away from the epicenter on the shock wave. Even Jet was knocked around by the explosion although as his cube settled, it settled even closer to the point of impact.

The recognizer had now managed to catch up and the beam shone directly on Jet once more.

“Application located and Identified.” Started the voice. “Confirm aim and execute memory delete.”

The tank slowed and aimed. Jet knew it had a lock on him this time and would not miss. The small cube he was on would offer far less resistance than the wall of the knoll that the tank had been so successful in blowing pieces out of.

There was a flash from the muzzle and Jet knew the impending delete instruction was on its way to meet him.

Behind Jet the shadow of the damage from the last impact rose as he descended. Looking at it, Jet could see glints of light resembling hypercubes. “It penetrated,” yelled Jet, realizing the tank’s last shot had blown a gap in the archive wall. Jet leapt away from his cube towards the huge ragged hole in the knoll, throwing himself as far as he could.

Nanocycles later, the cube Jet had been standing on exploded into discrete elements of energy and dust behind him as the delete instruction slammed into it, completely obliterating it.

Jet rolled hard as he hit the base within the gap that had been made by the previous delete instruction, feeling pain shooting through his legs as he tried to bring himself to a stop.

At first he lay there, then realizing the scanning beam of a recognizer was still moving towards where he was, dragged himself quickly to the back of the hole.

“No sign of illegal program operation. Delete successful.” Came the recognizer as it scanned the area.

The recognizer turned away.

Jet waited a little longer, looking for any possibility it might come back and scan the area again, then came out and looked around. The cubes were all flowing away from the hole at present. Another cube might not come by for a while, given the slow rate of descent of the cubes he had generally noted earlier.

The drop from the outside of the hole was still over a hundred meters down and Jet didn’t think he could make it. The wall was smooth and definitely un-climbable. He returned to the back of the hole made by the delete instruction and started to look for another exit.

Jet looked around. It was darker in here and difficult to follow the line of the blast, but the damage seemed to go deeper in places. Jet found a smaller continuation that seemed similar in shape to the original delete instruction, dropped to his stomach and crawled through.

The gap was longer than Jet thought and at times, difficult to get through, but as Jet crawled further, it appeared to make it all the way through.

On the other side of this new breach, Jet found himself in an ordered matrix of archive boxes containing information. Beneath his feet was a spool of archives that extended in a huge disk-shaped pattern across the floor.

Above Jet, a similar set of archive boxes were also present and moving slowly.

“Wow, that’s a lot of archive,” Jet said to himself, then realized that the entire inside of the knoll was one huge archive.

The archive itself was circular in shape and possibly two hundred meters across in the measures that Jet knew. At the very centre there appeared to be something resembling a double-helix staircase going in both directions.

Moving to the centre, Jet noted that other archive floors both higher and lower than he was at presently were also moving.

Each of the floors rotated slowly and at the middle and edge Jet could see that archive cubes would transition from one floor to another, one at a time, as the floors rotated around.

This entire facility resembled one huge endless spool.

Jet reached to the surface of the nearest archive and pressed his palm to it. Permissions 3,5 and 8 required came back to his mind. He tried another. Permissions 5,6 and 7.

All of the archives that Jet checked and so far were locked and he had no permission bits yet. He’d need to locate some to start reading the content of these archives.

Moving to the central helix, Jet climbed, towards the source of the archive cubes.

Reaching the top of the stairs, the communication tower core could be seen. To one side, Jet saw a cube manufacturing unit popping out blank opaque cubes, which moved along to the base of the datastream.

After moving past the data stream, the cubes turned clear and several hypercube archives would be trapped in the archive and bounce around as the boxes then flowed on to the archive entrance point near the outer edge of the archive.

Jet now understood what the blank memory spaces he had been using to get here were from.

Far off to the side Jet had come from, he could see a damaged area of wall, similar to the one he had come in through.

Some of the cubes which were queuing were falling out of the hole.

This was obviously the source and Jet wondered if the other hole had been made by a tank also.

Because of the cubes falling from the hole, the rate of the memory cube production exceeded the rate at which archives were being created. That was the reason for the memory leak.

Jet walked around the archive area and watched the cubes passing by.

The entire upper level appeared like some ethereal packaging plant. Once the archives were created, they entered the archive store below.

Jet began looking around the upper area of the archive creation machine to see if he could find some bits laying around.

Then he heard a click behind him and froze.

“Can I help you program?”

The voice came across sultry and low. Jet lifted his head slowly and looked around.

A deep green program with some type of rod weapon held loosely across her hands was standing directly behind him.

Jet turned fully and looked this new threat up and down.

As he appraised this possible opponent, Jet’s right hand began to edge it’s way over to his disc on his left elbow. It was almost there when the rod weapon shot forward with blinding speed and then blocked his hand from reaching his disc.

“Uh, uh. Don’t go making any moves that I don’t like or we’ll have to see if you really know how to use that thing.”

The program stood there calmly and in total control even as Jet felt is pulse quicken. The weapon she carried looked like an extended rod primitive but not as long as the permission checkers or ICPs held.

She was clearly in control of this situation and her attitude suggested to Jet that if he tried to run, she would strike him down.

This program was different to the other programs Jet had encountered so far in this world.

Where most of the programs Jet had seen wore a fairly basic shell, this program was far more exotic and appeared to look far more dangerous.

Her shell was attached closely to her body and moved with liquid ease over each of her curves. Where most programs work bulky shells, this was far more form fitting.

At the top of her shell, the subnet mask tapered at the base into a series of jointed short rod primitives that reached all the way to the base of her trunk, although it was apparent that it was loosely coupled from the way in which it swayed and curled as she moved. The end of the whip-like appendage also appeared to terminate in a barbed cone, giving the impression she could use it as a weapon also if she chose.

Her peripheral seals were thin and formfitting also and appeared loaded with circuits at points, yet thinned near her hands where they appeared to provide for full wrist movement and while her shell had only a shimmer of support safeguards, as the ICPs did, her base damping shell extended from just above her knees, providing armored protection all the way down, where they appeared to be raised slightly at the heel to allow the inclusion of a power spike.

Yet despite the alluring shape that this program exhibited, it was the way in which she stood and moved that really alerted Jet to the danger. This was not a program he could afford to take chances with.

Jet slowly moved away from the archival manufactory and kept his hand well away from his disk as she withdrew the staff just enough to let him move.

“Sorry, I just got a little lost. I’m trying to find the archival interface. Do you know where I should look for him?” Jet asked.

“You found her, Program,” she said. “I am the archive guardian.”

Not once did she blink or move her eyes from Jet’s face. It was apparent she was ready to respond to any aggressive move he made.

“Present your permissions for inspection,” she said, returning her staff to a non-threatening position that wouldn’t inhibit her if she readied it as a weapon.

Jet nodded. He didn’t think discussing his needs with this program was a good idea. He needed to get away from her.

“Ah, I, I think I left them in the archival. I’ll just go get them.” Jet said and took a single step towards the helix staircase he had ascended shortly before.

The rod moved quickly again, but not as quickly as it had the first time when Jet hadn’t expected it. The end of the rod stopped just inches in front of Jet’s face heading off his exit.

“You’re not going anywhere program, now state your PID and your purpose before I delete you.” She warned.

Her voice tone was hard now, not at all imbued with the same toying tone it had had before. Jet had read her purpose correctly. For all intents, she may have looked frail and feminine but her deadly status was all but confirmed.

Jet realized he had a problem that he wasn’t going to be able to walk away from. He needed to deal with this now.

Jet tried to explain himself. Perhaps honesty would be the best policy.

“Look, I’m just trying to track down information on a program, that’s all.” Jet explained, the glow of the end of the staff illuminating his face. “I thought there might be some information in the messages and syslogs that could help me.”

The green program slowly withdrew the staff until it was standing vertically, held in only one hand.

“What program do you seek in the logs, program.” She asked.

“A program named Mercury,” Jet said.

Suddenly the guardian’s face contorted almost to a snarl. Perhaps telling her what he wanted wasn’t the best move after all.

“You Kernel bastards just won’t give up will you. Always trying to track down one more program that still believes in users to destroy it.”

“No that’s not it,” said Jet, putting both of his palms forward. It did little to placate the guardian.

“Isn’t it enough what you’ve already done? “ She accused. “If you want that data so badly, you’re going to have to go through me to get it.

Jet was confused. Had he been here before? Did he really work for the Kernel?

“No, you’re misunderstanding,” Jet started, by the guardian interrupted him by dropping into an offensive position, her staff now extended along her forearm and protruding behind her as she readied to strike.

“Lock down the archive,” she yelled.

All around the communications tower, dozens of bits came floating out from gaps in the floor that led to the archival area. A light green haze came on around the helix stairs as forcefields separated Jet from any avenue of escape.

There was no point holding back any longer. Jet removed his disc and prepared to fight, wishing he had some kind of ranged weapon to keep the furious guardian at a distance.

Around the two combatants, bits swirled and moved forming a dynamic arena, highlighting the one on one combat about to begin between two program warriors.

The green program took a step back, prepared to attack and started spinning her staff. Energy bled from the tips of the whirling staff to form a greed disc that the guardian’s hand held at the centre.

“Defend yourself program and prepare to be derezzed” she screamed at Jet.

Jet assumed a defensive posture as the first blows came in from the enraged warrior program. The guardian came in fast, executing a lunge then a swing at Jet. Jet sidestepped backwards quickly, just narrowly avoiding both blows.

“I don’t want to fight you,” yelled Jet to his opponent.

The guardian didn’t seem to notice and Jet felt his back touch the equipment that was generating the memory archives.

With nowhere left for Jet to go, the guardian took advantage of the situation and thrust the staff directly at Jet. Jet held his disc up with both hands and blocked the blow full on, sending a shower of sparks out from the impact that rained down around them in different primary colors.

The green program took another step and swung the end of the staff around in an arc, which Jet ducked under, then rolled out to the side, getting out from between his foe and the equipment that blocked his retreat.

“Look, I don’t want trouble,” Jet tried to reason.

“Well, you’ve found it program,” the guardian replied as she jabbed the end of the staff into Jet’s midsection when he was too slow to move out of the way. The impact drove into Jet like a hammer, almost knocking his breath from him. His chest armor took a lot of the impact, but the sparks that seemed to issue forth from each blow that found it’s mark told Jet he couldn’t take too many of them before they got through.

“You’re a tough application, I’ll give you that,” said the Guardian as she pulled back her staff and prepared to continue the fight.

Around the two, the bits circled, moving in as the archive guardian pressed the attack, moving out as she stepped back, but never quite getting close enough to participate, their presence keeping Jet wary of his back as they circled behind him and overhead.

The guardian renewed her attack, this time extending the type of attack. As Jet knocked her staff to the side with his disc, he pulled back his head just in time to avoid her power spike as she executed a reverse spinning kick directly at his face, her range holding just a fraction short of impact, the heel hanging before his eyes for a moment before she retracted the kick.

Jet realized his biggest issue was that he didn’t want to hit the guardian back, as she pressed her attack. Something inside of him rejected each opportunity her attack gave him to retaliate.

It was time to take this match on the offensive.

Jet stepped back to avoid a well aimed kick at his chest then the guardian lunged at him, driving the staff forward like a spear once more.

Using his disc angled, Jet knocked the staff to the side, sparks skittering past him as he deflected the stroke.

The Guardian overextended her attack and began to retract the staff when Jet grabbed the staff and pulled It suddenly, forcing her to let go rather than be drawn completely off balance.

The green combat program let go of her weapon and looked up at Jet with surprise in her eyes. It seemed that this was one move she hadn’t expected of him.

Pressing the advantage before she could recover, jet swung her staff back hard at her, catching her across the chest with the energy tip.

The force of the blow lifted the tower guardian momentarily off her feet and flipped her over onto her back, where she came down hard.

Jet secured his disc to his elbow again and held the guardian’s own staff as he progressed, standing over her as she pulled herself back on her elbows and heels, looking around for something as if she could find another weapon to defend herself.

Now that Jet had her weapon he took her to be defeated.

The guardian moved until her back was to the same piece of equipment that had earlier blocked Jet’s path to escape. He was surprised at how easily he had defeated her.

Jet continued until he stood almost over her, but gave her the space she needed to stand up. He held the staff out however, the end glowing angrily now, buzzing with the same blue color as Jet’s armor.

Jet held it out near her chest like a spear as she rose, fear showing in her eyes, the guardian’s arms splayed out to the side as if she would find something to grab onto on the machinery behind her.

“I guess I win,” Jet said. “I want permission to read the archives now.”

The green guardian nodded once, swallowed then moved her hands forward as if to give Jet something.

“Give it to me,” Jet finished saying.

Jet realized too late that he had made a mistake when both of her hands shot forward and grabbed the staff directly, pulling it to the side until it slid past her, although it did nick her midsection, throwing some blue sparks as it hit.

The green guardian grimaced, but still took a step forward after the impact, well inside of any blow Jet could make with the staff now.

Jet still only held the staff with one hand.

Reaching for the staff with his other hand to pull it back from the guardian, Jet realized he just made his second mistake when the guardian smiled and pulled hard on the staff, throwing herself forward at that moment as she took another single step towards Jet.

The Jet could only watch as she hauled back her other leg before driving her base dampened foot straight up and hard between Jet’s support safeguards, connecting solidly.

There was an explosion of blue and green energy sparks that originated from between Jet’s legs as his Truncate armor failed and Jet was lifted up into the air on the force of the kick.

Jet hung there, suspended, for a fraction of a cycle before she snapped back her leg and Jet crashed back down as the world around him did the same. A wave of pain sweep over him and through him that he could not understand at first and then there was nothing but darkness.

When Jet came to, he was laying flat on his back and spread eagled. He still felt throbbing waves of pain that rolled through his stomach as he tried to roll over, but his efforts were in vain as his arms and legs appeared pinned to the floor.

Jet lifted his head slightly to look and noted a pulsing band of green energy held down each of his arms and his two knees.

He looked down at his feet as best he could and saw the green clad warrior just beyond who was sitting on a floating archive cube. He struggled with the bonds briefly, but they held.

“You won’t break them,” she said. “Their bounded arrays. Unbreakable.”

Jet felt another wave of pain and nausea sweep across him. Something else strained to break through into his head and was pounding in his mind as he fought uselessly against the bonds.

“I’m surprised you haven’t derezzed yet,” she said, looking down at him with contempt. “What are you program.”

Jet was about to reply when he remembered what Ma3a had said earlier. He wasn’t about to give up his identity yet. He remained silent. She sat with her arms back on the cube, one leg crossed over the other, bouncing at the knee very slowly, the power spike tracing a path through the air as she slowly kicked the foot backwards and forwards.

She continued. “You’re a lot tougher than the other ICPs the Kernel sent but just as dumb. I’m surprised the kernel left such an obvious exploit un-patched. For a while there I thought I might actually be facing an equal.”

The guardian leaned forward and slipped off the cube to come down standing with the grace of a professional gymnast.

The comparative memory bounced around in Jet’s head. A Gymnast. Jet couldn’t quite remember why he had that thought, but it was struggling to get through into his mind along with a number of other thoughts that kept a pressure up that Jet couldn’t understand.

The memory nagged at him briefly then disappeared as he was on the edge of remembering it.

“I just need to find Mercury or her followers,” pleaded Jet. “Then I’ll go.”

“And let the Kernel know how you were able to disarm me this time? Not likely,” said the warrior.

“I don’t work for the Kernel,” Jet pleaded.

“No,” said the advancing green warrior program as stepping forward towards Jet. “I will not be annexed. Save your debug for archival. The Kernel can read it in your error message when you derez.”

“Please,” pleaded Jet, but it was too late.

“Let’s see how far this exploit goes.” She said then walked up and stamped down hard on Jet.

Jet screamed and everything went black. This time, he remained conscious in the blackness.

Jet doubled over in pain in his mind. The pain came from everywhere now, no longer localized.

Although he could move now, he knew his digital body was still in searing agony as the archival keeper did her best to delete him.

He hadn’t felt this much pain since falling off his bike once when he was younger.

In the real world.

In the real world Jet came from.

Where Jet was a user. Where Jet was a programmer.

The pain brought with it a clarity Jet hadn’t found in the digital world. It brought his memories back with it. Jet could feel the program that he was trying to unravel at the damage the tower guardian was doing, but Jet knew how to keep it together now.

All of Jet’s memories came flooding back through the pain.

Jet was a user. He wasn’t from this world, but he had been here once before. He had come here to fix a serious issue. A youg girl, Melanie Gurimin, was trapped inside this computer. Her family were attempting to perform digital surgery when the accident happened. Jet had come in here to rescue her and then return to Mercury.

Jet came back to this world for Mercury, and now he understood why.

He loved her.

He had risked everything for her and he wasn’t about to let some green-tinged digital dominatrix take everything he cared for in the world away from him.

Back in the digital world where’s Jet’s digitized body now existed, Jet was still bound to the floor by four bounded arrays.

Program Jet was trapped, but programmer Jet, User Jet knew how to take bounded arrays, exceed them and break them.

All good programmers try to avoid bugs but when they need to find them, it usually doesn’t take too much effort. Programmers are good at that sort of thing.

This pain’s not real, Jet reminded himself. Only what I need to do in the digital world is real.

The pain started to dull immediately.

The digital world came rushing back to Jet’s senses. He was back in the archival communications tower.

The verdant vixen was now standing over his head. She had retrieved her weapon and was drawing it back as she raised it for the killing blow.

“You are difficult to delete,” she said, no pity in her voice. “But I’ve only ever been beaten by one program before so don’t feel too bad. You fared quite well really”

The arrays still held him.

Jet focused on the array. It’s not really bounded, he reminded himself. It’s only sending warning messages to my program that I’m exceeding the bounds, but I can exceed the bounds.

Jet focused all of his strength and understanding and pulled his arm free as the staff came stabbing down in its killing blow.

Jet’s hand came up and caught the crackling end of the staff, stopping it nearly dead. His blue glow flared briefly, and the staff suddenly started changing color as the lower half absorbed Jet’s energy.

“No, you can’t.” said the guardian. A mixture of fear and surprise spreading across her face as she failed to drive the staff down.

“That’s not possible. You can’t have found an exploit in the arrays. Programs are bound by the limitations they impose.”

Jet ripped his other hand free and trailing energy from the severed bond, grabbed the staff further up and with both hands on it and his back on the floor, threw the staff and it’s holder back over past his feet.

Jet lifted himself to a sit and then lifted his knees one at a time breaking the two final arrays. Bits loyal to the program swirled around the fighters, a chorus of “no no no no” in different frequencies filling the air around them as the arrays broke.

Jet stood up, a few remaining pieces of array falling to the ground to be derezzed.

The guardian moved to get herself up and then held her staff in a defensive position, holding it in a way as to make Jet keep his distance. Jet kept on walking to her, the guardian backing up even quicker to increase the distance between them.

Bits swirled around the two and between them for the first time. A bit shot directly at Jet’s face, but Jet casually lifted the back of his hand and deflected it.

“What kind of program are you?” she asked, her voice unsteady with fear.

“Let me access the archives” Jet asked forcefully, blue energy flaring and pulsing in his circuits.

“I will die before I betray my user,” screamed the program, then in one final attempt, ran directly at Jet, the floor flaring in concentric circles everywhere her power spikes hit the ground.

“For a free system,” she screamed and leapt at Jet. In midair, she brought the staff down hard towards Jet.

Jet batted aside the rod with the disk still attached to his elbow and stopped her with a single hand held out, which she crashed into with her chest just below her throat.

The impact threw her backwards and once more she was on her back, crawling towards the cube machinery.

“I need those permissions,” Jet said, removing his disc

The green program struggled backwards for a moment as she had before when in this position.

Her face betrayed her intent as she tried one last defensive attack. Pulling back her leg, she attempted to kick Jet again, but it was clumsy, poorly timed and Jet had been expecting it. Jet closed his knees as her leg came up, stopping it before it could strike.

“That vulnerability’s been firewalled,” Jet said. “Now how we talk about some permissions.”

Jet drew back his disc.

The guardian knew she had been defeated. She stopped moving and waited for Jet to advance on her, but he held himself back this time as well. She crawled her way to a kneeling position before the victor.

“You’ve defeated me program, but you’ll still have to pry my permission bits from my cold, core dump.” she said. The defiance was still there, but the tone in her voice acknowledged her defeat.

Jet didn’t move on her. He stood there, waiting, unsure what to do. She was trembling as she held herself kneeling before him.

“You’ve won, program. Delete me,” she goaded him. She lifted her chin and held her throat bare before Jet, awaiting his disc strike that would derez her, her arms now held limply at her size. Liquid energy started to pool in the corner of her eyes.

Jet stood for a moment longer then looked at his disc as if considering what it did to other programs.

As badly as Jet needed those permissions, he now knew programs weren’t just faceless pieces of code in this system. They were real and they felt emotions – including pain and fear. In his heart, Jet knew that if she did not give him the permissions, he could not bring himself to crash her program.

Jet re-attached his disc to his elbow and turned around, walking away slowly.

The defeated archive guardian’s gaze followed Jet’s back as he walked away. “So you intend to draw this out program? I thought only the MCP was so cold.”

Jet turned to face her again and noticed how she flinched when she saw him turn around. She had prepared herself for deletion after her defeat, but the fear she was experiencing was still tangible. It made Jet feel sick with empathy.

Slowly, as Jet watched her, the old functions he had inherited during his last visit started to come online. Profiler jumped to the front and Jet felt the familiar application API settle into his program.

A name appeared in Jet’s mind as he looked at the fallen guardian. Jade version 14.33.

Jade was an old program. No wonder she had seemed so undefeatable at first. Jet wondered how many encounters she must have had to have gone through so many revisions.

“Jade, version fourteen point three three,” Jet said.

Jade was the function name of the archive guardian. She seemed surprised that Jet knew it.

“You’re not an ICP, Jade, and I’m not a kill function. I won’t terminate your process needlessly.

“I need your help, but I’m not going to kill you to get those permissions. I’m not like that.” Jet said.

Jade slumped to her side as the killing blow failed to come and the last of her defiant strength ran out.

“You’re not going to derez me?” she asked.

“I need access to the archives, Jade. But if you won’t help me then I’ll find another way.”

“But make no mistake - if you attack me again or try to stop me, I won’t hesitate to do what I must.”

Jet turned again and began walking towards the archives.

“Program, you have defeated me. What is your designation,” called out Jade, still slumped and holding herself up on one arm she held to the side of her.

“You can call me Jet,” called back Jet. He didn’t bother to turn back to face her. He knew who he was and what he needed to do now. He walked down the helix staircase. Profiler attached a meaning to the helix this time. It was the archive index.

Back in the I/O tower, where she had been defeated, Jade examined her hands in a new light. She had been defeated at the hands of a program whom she expected would delete her. He had responded honorably to her at the end and showed mercy. Jade now owed him a debt according to the rules of the guardians, but this time she was actually grateful.

“Wait Program,” she called after Jet, then got to her feet unsteadily and ran after him. “I need to know why you want to track down the resistance.”

Jet was moving back towards the lower archive by the helix index when Jade caught up. She carefully reached out and touched his shoulder gingerly as if she expected him to resume his attack.

Jet only slowed and continued talking, all the time looking for anything that might resemble a permission bit. “I need to find Mercury. I only have a limited time to complete my task.”

Jet continued down the stairs. “Why do you need to find the Mercury program.”

Jet slowed as he talked to Jade.

“I have a promise I made to her once that I need to keep,” Jet said. He noticed that the stairs seemed to stop a little further down.

“Wait program. Do not go down there. At the base of the archive, the recognizers are waiting. Only the Kernel controls the lower archive” Said Jade.

Jet stopped. “So will you help me?”

Jade looked away for a moment then back at Jet, her face showing she was having trouble with her decision.

“Understand, program, I gave my promise to another who defeated me that I would not reveal Mercury’s location to any other program, nor allow any other program to access the archives. This I swore on my user.” Jade explained.

“I am indebted to you for sparing me and will offer you what you ask, but I cannot help a program to find Mercury and retain my honor.

“Please understand Jet that I wish to help you, but I cannot”

Jet looked briefly around the archives. The streams were huge and compressed. He had already walked past thirty layers on his way down. It might well take him too long to locate the information he needed, even if he could discover the correct permission bits.

He needed to find a way to convince Jade to help him search the archives.

“Jade, who requested this of you,” he asked.

“It was Mercury who ultimately defeated me and Mercury herself who made the request.” Jade said.

Jet was surprised by the comment. “You fought Mercury?” he asked.

“And the programs loyal to her, but they eventually defeated me and by honor I was bound to allow what they requested of me,” Jade explained.

“What did Mercury ask of you,” Jet asked.

“Mercury wished to access the communications tower to leave a message for her user and then asked for me to lock the archives and restrict access after she left.” Jade said.

Jet considered what Jade had just told him. Mercury had been here before him and had tried to communicate with her user.

“Jade,” Jet began, “did Mercury request that you seal the archive off from everyone, or only programs.”

Jade looked at Jet strangely. “Only programs of course, but by extension, even bits and bytes or even targeted queries are still extensions of programs or the kernel. Mercury was quite specific in this matter. All programs, APIs and extensions save herself to be banned”

Jet breathed in hard through his nose as he considered this. Mercury may have considered this possibility that he would need to get some information from the archive if he returned.

If Mercury had pre-empted this, she may have left him a loophole to request access himself.

Then what Jade had said earlier seemed so obvious.

“What if I wasn’t covered by that equation,” asked Jet. “Could you then open the archives to me?”

Jade seemed confused. “Her equation was absolute, Jet. Even if you attempted to deceive me, my Boolean circuits would still detect if what you said was true. I can’t see any way I can allow you access.”

Jet realized now that he had to expose what he truly was in order to get this information. Mercury had considered this well.

“Jade, you can give me the permissions. I’m not a program.” Jet said.

Jade made a frown as she considered the statement.

“That does not compute, but the equation evaluates true,” said Jade. “That should not be possible.”

“Will you help me now Jade,” Jet asked.

Suddenly Jade fell to her knees, there on the helix index beside Jet, her eyes opened wide and her mouth dropping with the weight of what she had just realized. She held both hands to her chest between her breasts and sat fully back on her heels.

“Oh my user,” she exclaimed, looking up into Jet’s eyes, a mixture of awe, fear and surprise showing through.

“You’re a User.”

Next: Chapter 2.17 – Tarzip.